Seeking Los Angeles EDs with "Dal Corso" surnames in 1950 Census

Hi James,

I'm not sure I'm addressing your query.  But I see from it... how does one cut through the noise and find all of the Dal Corso 1950 schedules for people in Los Angeles.  LA is both a city and a county, so that's to be considered.  I also assume you are using the Archives 1950 name index.  So.... first, I go to the Archives name index and pick California and pick Los Angeles.  Archives was not consistent and luckily, they combined both the city and county name indexes under a single "Los Angeles".  I then entered in the name box Dal Corso.  I see there are 3993 hits, with quite a bit of noise.  Now, I use a trick.  On my MS computer, I press Ctrl F to get a built in utility to search text for a specific phrase.  I put into that Ctrl F search box 'DAL "  ... note I put in the box DAL and a space.  I then change the Archives search to show 100 hits per screen.  Then it is a simple matter to press the "1" screen, and then ask my Cntrl F  utility if there are any DAL people shown on the text of the page of 100.  This will only search the first record and any other record that has DAL as the name.  Forty such procedures later, I've covered all 3993 choices.... in not much time.  I only see one close match to your search term.  On Archives search screen 32 I see a Laura Dal Carso name, in ED 19-1243.  I didn't further check it out.  Could that be one you are searching for?

Hello, Joel,

That sounds like a great idea in general even if it might not get me exactly there.

I need to update some people on our joint search for two neighbors we had in the mid-60s in Berkeley first and then see if I can use your approach for one of them in 1950.

I use Linux and our search inside a screen or results is the same Ctrl-F.

You wrote "screen 32 I see a Laura Dal Carso name, in ED 19-1243"

I will seek  to duplicate that and proceed.

That's unlikely to be the Dal Corso I am looking for, but I won't be able to tell until I search for children's names and find a "Judy" or a "Judith" born about 1942.

I will get back to you.

Thank you.

Hi, Joel,

I duplicated what you did for the initial part and got 3993 hits.

Then I did Ctrl F and this time put in "Dal "

I did not find a way to "I then change the Archives search to show 100 hits per screen." though I poked around a little.

Here is a screenshot of where I am:

Can you help me do that change to the Archives search?

Thanks.

I guess you changed the box in the upper right from "show 25" to "show 100"

I scanned down the page looking at the hits on the right for each ED.

I then clicked on next 100 and will see if I end up with your previous "screen 32 I see a Laura Dal Carso name, in ED 19-1243"

James, looking at your screenshot.  Note that on the upper right is "show 25"... you can change that to show 100 hits per page.  That will reduce the number of pages (of 100 each) you will have to go through at the Archives site.  Once on a page of 100, if there is a Ctrl F match, the red in the box should change to get you to that part of the 100 that is a match.  Then press the upside down ^ on the Ctrl F box to see the next hit, if there is one on that 100.  If run out of hits, then move to the next 100 hits on the Archives search pages until you reach the 40th page of 100s.

Hi, Joel,

I went through all 40 of the enumeration district sets of 100 and found no Dal Corsos, not even in 15-1243.

I went back and searched for ED 15-1243 and saw Laura Dal Corso.

I am not sure why it did not show up on the 32nd one and even more that I did not see it when I scanned.

So if the Dal Corso family that included Judy or Judith was in Los Angeles in 1950 where were they?

I think her family was in a part of LA near Pasadena or Eagle Rock etc. in the 1960s so lots could have happened in the meantime.

If you have comments on whether I understood your process accurately and if I should search other areas, I would appreciate it.

I don't know what you mean by pressing "1" to get the scan to advance.

Thanks.

- Jim

James:  Sometimes it's helpful to treat multiword surnames as one word, such as Dalcorso instead of Dal Corso.  With that in mind, I set my search terms for California, Los Angeles, and Dalcorso.  That resulted in 25 hits of which the second one - "Matched Name = Dalcorso" for ED 66-305, includes an Albert J. Dalcorso family with a daughter named Judith, age 7.  Is this the one?

Claire Kluskens, NARA

Hello, Claire Kluskens,

Thank you ever so much.

That hit in DD66-305 scores super high on the plausibility rating.

Your method was slick and fast also.

I will go through the rest of the EDs to be sure.

Question: What is the appropriate way to make a copy of the correct ED? Is it the download button?

Thank you again.

- Jim

Jim,

You're welcome!  To download any individual page, click on those three dots in the upper right above the image and you will get the opportunity to download that page.

If you wanted to download all the pages for an ED, you could do that, although that could get tedious.  I believe you can do a bulk download for an ED following the instructions on this page: https://www.archives.gov/developer/1950-census which I personally don't understand but if you need further assistance click on the "contact us" at the top of that page. 

James, I find it helpful to go on Ancestry and search the 1950 census.  The search engine is up and running and searches for every name, not just heads of households.  You can access it for free at most public libraries.  I found Judith by entering DelCorso as one word.  Here is the page, attached.  You   I